Re: scram and \password

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka(at)iki(dot)fi>, Michael Paquier <michael(dot)paquier(at)gmail(dot)com>, Jeff Janes <jeff(dot)janes(at)gmail(dot)com>, Joe Conway <mail(at)joeconway(dot)com>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: scram and \password
Date: 2017-03-17 13:42:21
Message-ID: 28651.1489758141@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 8:32 AM, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka(at)iki(dot)fi> wrote:
>> It would make sense to have \password obey password_encryption GUC. Then
>> \password and ALTER USER would do the same thing, which would be less
>> surprising. Although it's also a bit weird for a GUC to affect client-side
>> behavior, so perhaps better to just document that \password will create a
>> SCRAM verifier, unless you explicitly tell it to create an MD5 hash, and add
>> a 'method' parameter to it.

> Either of those would be fine with me, but I think we should do one of them.

I vote for the second one; seems much less surprising and action-at-a-
distance-y. And I think the entire point of \password is to *not* do
exactly what a bare ALTER USER would do, but to superimpose a layer of
best practice on it. We certainly want to define use of SCRAM as being
best practice.

regards, tom lane

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